Day 31/03/2015

Just came across this insightful reflection from Courtney Martin, who makes an important point about the need, not just for designers or creatives, but for all individuals invested in living lives of wonder, meaning and connection to question the status quo of one’s daily habits and thought patterns.

pause, question & rethink …*

“I don’t think it’s just great designers that have an awareness of how their own habits dull their capacity to be creative, to invent, to expect more. I would argue that it’s great humans that do. One of my favorite mantras in the Buddhist tradition is, “May I see what I do. May I do it differently. May I make this a way of life.”

I say it often. Because, to be quite frank, I sometimes get really sick of myself. I get sick of my anxiety. I get sick of my automatic thoughts. I get sick of my “way.”

Of course I try to be gentle with my tired self; we all have a way of being in the world that makes us feel safe. Habits are part of what makes our lives livable. In the chaos of contemporary life, we crave the easily ordered, the familiar, the given. The things we do over and over again, the things that we don’t have to orchestrate or anticipate or invent, are like welcome exhales.

[ . . . ]

When we get too attached to these habits, we risk losing our sense of wonder and our potential for the catalytic experience. When we get too comfortable, we risk falling asleep on the job — the job being living an awake life.

So it has me thinking: what are the habits that I need to or, better yet, want to shed? What are the habits filled with pleasure, the ones that make me feel grounded and capable of diving back into the fray of my busy life; in contrast, what are the habits that dull me? What are the habits that have gotten me here but won’t get me there?”